Dockerscan vs Clair: 2026 Comparison
Dockerscan is a free container security tool. Clair is a free container security tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best container security fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Development teams running Docker in lab or early-stage environments should start with Dockerscan because it's free and requires no setup to scan your images and running containers for known vulnerabilities. The 1,531 GitHub stars indicate solid adoption among engineers who want quick local feedback before pushing to registry, not a replacement for runtime security in production. Skip this if you need network segmentation analysis or compliance reporting; Dockerscan does vulnerability scanning well and stops there.
Development teams shipping containers through CI/CD pipelines should start with Clair because it catches known vulnerabilities at build time before they reach production, and the free, open source model means zero licensing friction for catching this at scale. With 10,942 GitHub stars and deep integration into container registries via API indexing, Clair is battle-tested in high-volume scanning workflows. Skip it if you need runtime threat detection or vulnerability prioritization based on exploitability; Clair is static analysis only, which means it flags everything in the database regardless of whether the vulnerability actually matters for your application.
